


Reach

by KitsJay



Category: Common Law (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mental Health Issues, suicide of an OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 23:06:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17796479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsJay/pseuds/KitsJay
Summary: Wes struggles after a difficult case.





	Reach

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on the Common Law kinkmeme.

He reached for the soap.

When he had first quit his job as a lawyer, he remembered thinking that it would be better as a cop - that instead of cleaning up the mess long after the fact, that he could be amidst it, maybe prevent suffering and pain and all the broken families with accusing stares sitting in the front of a courtroom. He could do some good.

And most of the time, he did feel like that. With every satisfying click of metal handcuffs around a perp's wrist, he felt like he was doing some good.

He did do good. He knew it.

He just wished that knowledge felt more comforting when he had to interview a widow who never cried, never shed a tear. The crying ones were the worst, he had always thought, because he felt so useless offering a Kleenex or a glass of water, rolling out all those soft voices and down-pat phrases like, "Take your time", and, "I'm so sorry for your loss."

That was a mistake.

He reached for the soap.

There was something altogether worse about Mrs. Sommers, with her unkempt hair and pale face and bleak eyes. She had laugh lines around her mouth and there were pictures strewn around, smiling and sharing a joke with her husband or hugging her children while beaming at the camera. She never made a sound, never sobbed into her palm, never choked on her words, just answered all of their questions like it was a script. He had seen denial, and this wasn't it. This wasn't anger, this wasn't bargaining, this wasn't grief - it was ... acceptance. Resignation.

He had never seen something so chilling in his life.

He reached for the soap.

They had two kids, two little boys, the youngest only four and appearing at the doorway, hair a mop on top of his head and sucking his thumb, looking bewildered and confused. His brother had put his arm around him, distracted him from a toy, and Mrs. Sommers watched them.

"He doesn't usually do this," she said suddenly.

"What's that?" Travis asked, in that soft, gentle voice of his that he used around victims' families. He was better at that than Wes was, who sat uncomfortably perched on an overstuffed sofa with Kool-Aid stains on the arm.

"Play with his little brother. He thinks Paul's too little. He's at that phase when he wants to play with his own friends."

Wes was expecting the breakdown then, the realization, but instead she sighs. "I guess he understands better than Paul does."

"Mrs. Sommers," he interrupted, and looking back, he remembers justifying it that they were there for a reason, that they had to ask some questions, but really he just wants her to stop talking in that voice that sounds like all the sunshine is gone, "we need to ask you some questions."

She stares at him and waits.

He reached for the soap.

"Did Gary have any enemies? Anyone who would want to hurt him?"

"Kill him, you mean?" she says flatly. There's not a trace of anger in it. "Check his business partner. They had a falling out recently, Gary was upset about it."

And they had, and it was so fucking ridiculous to Wes suddenly - that something as petty as a falling out between business partners, friends, could lead to a corpse lying on cool concrete with blood puddled under its skull, a winter widow, and two kids playing on the floor of a lopsided family room.

He reached for the soap.

He would have been fine, he thought as he viciously scrubbed at his hands. It would have been fine, if they hadn't stopped to tell her the news of her husband's murderer being arrested.

It would have been fine if they hadn't opened the door to no answer, gone inside.

It would have been fine if they hadn't found her in the bathroom, a gun lying in her limp hand and her eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

It would have been fine, if they hadn't found the kids huddled together in their room, scared by a big noise they didn't understand, and their mom wouldn't answer and they couldn't find her and daddy hadn't been home in a while -

He reached for the soap.

"Wes?"

He ignored the tentative voice, the sound of footsteps behind him as Travis walked over to the sink. There was a hand on his shoulder, and he couldn't very well ignore that.

"What?" he gritted out.

"Are you okay?"

That wasn't an unreasonable question, he thought. "Get out."

"Man, you're freaking me out here."

"Just get out," he bit out.

He reached for the soap, and there's a hand in his way, trying to stop him.

"Don't," he managed, pushing the hand aside, and it hurts to even deviate that much, but he got it, started up the process again, watching the water run over his soapy hands and disappear down the drain.

"Wes," Travis said quietly, and it was the same voice he used with -

He reached for the soap.

"Wes, your hands are bleeding," Travis pointed out.

"I know," Wes said, as sarcastic as he can manage. "I can see that. Thank you for gracing me with your awesome powers of observation. Now leave already."

"No," Travis said, and leaned up against the sink. He crossed his arms and waited, and Wes wants to alternately cry and laugh because it's so stupidly, typically _Travis_ to do that.

"Weren't we just talking about personal boundaries in therapy?" Wes tried.

"I didn't really pay attention," Travis remarked. "Though speaking of therapy - "

"Don't," Wes said in dead seriousness. "Don't tell me it's stupid or that it's irrational, because I know it, okay? I know it. And don't ask, 'What would happen if you didn't do it' because I know it, I just - "

He cut himself off at that, feeling his face heat up red under the fluorescent lighting. He can see himself, turning off the water, shaking his hands off, grabbing a paper towel and drying them off and throwing it in the trash can and walking out the door. He can give himself pep talks ("Just do it, this is the last one, just shut the water off,") but -

He reached for the soap.

"That's not what I was going to say," Travis said.

"Oh."

"I was just going to ask if you saw that skirt Chelsea was wearing the other day?"

Wes suppressed a smirk, but lets the eye-roll come through. "She's married, Travis. That's why she's in couples therapy."

Travis puts up his arms and grins that 'Don't you want to take me home and feed me?' grin of his. "Doesn't mean I can't look, man."

It had taken Travis approximately five minutes to find out all of the group members' names, their backgrounds, favorite foods, colors, and possibly favorite childhood toys. He had that knack, that one that Wes sometimes wished he had.

Didn't work with Mrs. Sommers, though.

He reached for the soap.

"Hey, Wes?" Travis asked, and his voice is cautious, but not that gentle tone from before.

"Yeah?"

"It was a bad scene, man, but there was nothing we could have done."

There was _always_ something you could do. He just didn't know what it was.

"Really," Travis persisted, "Mrs. Sommers had given up as soon as we told her that her husband was dead. There was nothing we could have said that would have changed her mind."

"Tell that to her kids," Wes snarled.

He reached for the soap.

There's a warm hand on his arm again, bidding him to turn and look at Travis. "It sucks, yeah. But that isn't our fault."

Wes wrenched his arm away from his partner, shoving his hands under the scalding water again.

"Wes, it wasn't your fault."

"I know," he said quietly. "But it still..."

"Doesn't help?" Travis said, and there's a note of real empathy in his tone. "I know. But you know what does?"

"What's that?"

"Letting your partner get some antiseptic on those hands, then getting a beer."

"Talk it out?" Wes said.

"Yeah," Travis nodded. "Exactly. Better than hiding in a bathroom, right?"

It sounded so prosaic, so cliche - but also kind of nice.

He reached for the tap and shut it off.


End file.
